Sunday, December 6, 2009

Wedding cookies

I love to make these traditional pecan shortbread cookies that are often make for weddings in the south. I made these cookies for my friend Karen's wedding over the weekend. The wedding was very nice and instead of catering, a number of friends got together and made dishes for the wedding.

It can be a very good way to keep wedding expenses down. Even a catered wedding can have items made by family or friends added to the menu to help with the expense of feeding a crowd. One suggestion would be to make these cookies or other items and freeze them. These cookies freeze well and you might want to wait to roll the cookies in powdered sugar for the second time after they are thawed and before serving.

Preheat oven at 325 degrees. Mix butter and sugar until creamy. Add water, vanilla flavoring and flour. Mix well. Add the nuts a mix. Put dough into the refrigerator until firm, usually 30 minutes to two hours. (If dough is refrigerated overnight or for several days, it might become a little too hard to work with and you will need to leave the dough out at room temperature until it is warm enough to form. This will not effect the outcome.) Scoop 1/2 to 1 teaspoons of dough and form into balls. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and put cookies on sheets allowing at least 3/4 inches around each cookie. Bake for 20 minutes or until done. They should only be lightly browned. Cool on cooling racks and then roll cookies in powdered sugar. Let set for awhile and roll in powdered sugar again. Makes about 2 to 3 dozen cookies, depending on size of cookies.

To make Mexican wedding cookies, substitute almonds for the pecans.

You also can easily form the dough into crescents or logs.

A Christmas option: Use the recipe above and make Cherry Snowball Cookies. To do this just make the above recipe and buy maraschino cherries. Drain well and use a cherry in the center of each cookie. Form dough around the cherry. When you bite into the cookie you will get a surprise. Perfect for Christmas.